Emotional farewell for Jack Edwards in Boston!

On Thursday night, long-time NESN broadcaster Jack Edwards bid farewell after his last Boston Bruins game.

“It’s been a joyride for 19 years. And this is my goodbye.”

Earlier this season, Edwards had announced his retirement from professional broadcasting at 67 years old. The Bruins’ Game 6 in the first round series agaisnt the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night was his final game, broadcasted on NESN.

His partner Andy Brickley gave him a touching send-off when he said to an emotional Edwards:

“I had 4 brothers but now I have 5.”

What an emotional scene, despite the fact that many fans and pundits had been calling for Edwards to step away from the broadcasting booth long ago.

Edwards has been the Bruins’ play by play broadcaster on NESN since 2005 and is seen as one of the best to ever call the sport, but in the past couple seasons his game has slipped. Earlier this year, Edwards announced that a mystery illness has kept him from putting out his best efforts and now, it appears, that he has accepted it’s time to hang up his microphone.

“I did not have some kind of accident,” he said to Boston.com just a month ago. “I do not have cancer. I don’t have dementia. I haven’t had a stroke. All of that’s been confirmed by Mass. General neurology.”

“They’ve done tests that seem like I’m going through some sort of science-fiction scene, but it’s really true. The images of my brain literally reveal nothing. That’s my joke with them.”

“It doesn’t fit in any slot,” he had explained. “There have been a couple of guesses, but they haven’t made a definitive diagnosis and they’ve been working on me for a year and a half. It’s very frustrating, as you can imagine, for me to have this slowdown in my speech.”

Edwards can now enjoy retirement and focus on his recovery.

Unfortunately for him, while he had an emotional sendoff from Brickley and the NESN team, the Bruins weren’t able to win the game and will now face elimination in Boston on Saturday, with ABC having exclusive rights to Saturday’s Game 7 at TD Garden.

Without Edwards calling the game. Happy retirement Jack!

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